Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) (29 page)

“Think like an engineer,” Mara said. “There’s got to be some nooks or crannies around here somewhere.”

“Hmm, an engineer. Perhaps maintenance access.” Then his eyes stopped moving, and he looked at Mara. “Are you claustrophobic or afraid of heights?”

Mara arched her eyebrow at him. “No, not usually. Why?”

“A network of maintenance conduits runs throughout the building parallel to the plasma pipes. It connects the power and data storage facilities in the basement, up through the columns we saw flanking the atrium, to the cubes on the second floor and thereafter to the sphere in the dome above the third floor.”

“That sounds promising. So we can actually crawl inside the columns overlooking the atrium. But will we be able to see anything from inside these conduits?” Mara asked.

Cam nodded. “They are constructed of the same material as the pipes, a clear polymer. If I’m interpreting the schematics correctly, there’s enough space between the pipes for us to see into the atrium.”

“Will they be able to see us?”

“The pipes obscure most of the conduit, and I think the variable nature of the light being emitted from the plasma would act as a camouflage, especially for someone looking in our direction from a distance. The key will be to move slowly, so our movements don’t draw attention.”

“Sounds like you’re not completely sure,” she said.

“There is the possibility of being spotted, but it’s the only alternative to staying exposed on the floors above the atrium,” he said.

Mara glanced up at the column behind which Sam had hidden and been found. “That’s not really an option. They will be here in a few minutes looking for us. How do we get into this conduit network?”

“Access ports are on the right side of each column, on each floor. I’ll need you to generate a signal, so I can link to the locking mechanism and open the panel.”

Mara heard a muffled clatter come through the stairwell door and tensed. “Sounds like someone is coming from downstairs. Can we do this before they get here?”

Cam waved her over to the column and said, “Just give me a quick connection to the locking mechanism embedded here.” He tapped the transparent side of the column.

Mara couldn’t see anything resembling a lock, but she closed her eyes and visualized one anyway. She imagined the signal, and a second later she felt Cam’s hand on her arm.

“Let’s go,” he said. “You first.”

Mara opened her eyes to see him standing next to a transparent panel door. It was open. Inside, the pipes had shifted to reveal a vertical tube with a portion of its wall missing.

Cam pushed her forward. “Hurry. They are coming. Just step inside. The tube is lined with raised rings to step on and use for handholds, like a ladder.”

Mara slipped into the opening, just wide enough to accommodate her body and the book bag slung over her shoulder. She quickly found her footing. Looking up the tube, she grabbed a ring extruding from the wall just above her head. She pulled herself up, allowing room for Cam to follow. She took a couple more steps upward and paused, looked to see Cam reaching for the panel door. When he closed it, the pipes running parallel to the conduit slid back in place, covering the opening. They were now encased in a human-size version of a hamster’s tube surrounded by the glow of plasma.

Mara climbed a few rungs and paused, peering through the gaps between the pipes. She could see the third floor across the atrium. Lifting an arm, she glanced downward, where she could see a sliver of the gathering on the ground floor. The pipes blocked about two-thirds of the view, including the risers where the motivation man still stomped and paced back and forth. It wasn’t exactly an ideal perch for gathering information. Not to mention the tight uncomfortable quarters.

“I can see the crowd down there, but I can’t hear them at all,” she said. “It’s a great hiding place, but I’m not so sure how well this will work. We’ll never learn what’s happening, if we stay bottled up in here.”

“There’s a platform above the sphere in the dome. We can crawl to that. With the acoustics in the atrium, we should be able to hear them up there. The downside is that the sphere will be below us, and we won’t be able to see anything.”

A few feet below them, they heard voices shouting from the third floor. It sounded as if someone was standing next to the column, calling to others in a raised voice.

Mara heard the man as he spoke. “No one has come down from the third floor since they were spotted. We’ve got guards on all the stairs, so they have to be up here somewhere. Check every room and office. Start on this side of the building and work your way around systematically, and we’ll find them. But be careful.”

Mara whispered down her side, “All right, it’s probably better to hear the whole thing than to see only a portion of it. Do I just start climbing?”

“Exactly. The columns continue to the top of the dome, where they connect to columns on the platform I mentioned. The conduit will slope inward with the contours of the dome as we approach the sphere,” he said.

After several steps Mara was getting the hang of navigating within the tubes. Having the rings along the walls at regular intervals was much easier to find footholds than making sure her feet found the rungs on a ladder. And gravity seemed to be much less of a factor, since she didn’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about keeping balance.
No wonder hamsters could zip through these things so fast
.

As they approached the glowing globe suspended from the dome, movement on the ground caught Mara’s attention. She also sensed a burst of activity below, more a vibration than a sound, but enough to stop her climb. Peering through the gap between the pipes, she could see people on the ground waving their arms, holding the tiny diodes aloft. She guessed they were in another of their chanting frenzies. It was tough to tell with her limited field of vision, and the higher they climbed, the less detail she could make out.

Then a recognizable form slipped into view and then passed out, blocked by the plasma pipes. Mara tensed and gasped. It was Abby. She was now the one pacing before the crowd. She had replaced the motivational speaker man.

Below, Cam sensed her tension and asked, “What’s the matter? Are you having difficulty?”

“No.” Mara scrambled upward, so determined to get to the top that she didn’t comment further while they climbed past the massive golden orb just feet away and ignored the stomach-churning path of the tube as it sloped inward, mounted to the side of the bell-shaped dome suspended high above the atrium.

At the apex, Mara encountered a wall, and, at first, she thought the conduit simply ended, but, as she crawled closer, she saw a round hole in the bottom area of the wall. Another tube connected at a right angle. Now at the top of the dome, she was actually parallel to the ground. This new tube went straight down. It took her a minute to get a sense of direction and to assess how she should proceed.

Behind her, Cam said, “Look for a small space beyond the opening to the new conduit. It gives you enough room to maneuver, so you can go feet-first. It’s only about ten feet to the platform. Just lower yourself down.”

Mara followed his directions and found herself at the bottom of the conduit in a few seconds. She glanced at the wall of the tube and imagined unlocking the panel in the side of the column. The door opened, and the plasma-filled pipes slid to the side.

Above her, still climbing down, Cam said, “If you give me a signal, I can open the door to let us out.”

“Already taken care of,” she said.

Mara stepped onto a circular platform, tethered to the top of the dome by the glowing column through which we they had crawled. Waves of light streaming up from the sphere flowed across the walls of the dome, giving Mara a sense of being underwater, like standing next to large glass tank at an aquarium. She walked to the chrome handrail some twenty feet away and looked over the edge. She could see nothing below except the spinning bands of energy whirling around inside the sphere.

A loud cheer bounced off the domed ceiling, pulling Mara from her reverie. The crowd below began their chant, though this time they were whispering almost reverently.
See the light. Share the light. Be the light
. Over and over they whispered the incantation. They did not build up to a crescendo as they had before. The words were not growing louder, but they were coming quicker, with more urgency. Mara got the impression they were egging someone on, providing encouragement, like the crowd at a football game.

A loud gasp cut off the chanting.

In the silence, Mara cocked an ear. She held up a finger to her lips as Cam approached. She didn’t want to miss something.

A low murmur of excitement filled the air.

Then a man’s deep voice intoned, reverberated off the walls surrounding the atrium, sounding like Moses delivering commandments from a mountainside. “I am light!”

The crowd went nuts.

Mara and Cam stared at each other in stunned silence as the raucous clapping and cheering rising up from the floor of the atrium. A look of frustration swept over Mara’s face as she spun around, looking for a way to get a look at what was happening below. Leaning over the railing that encircled the platform, she saw some kind of crawl space beneath it.

“There’s got to be a way for us to see what’s going on.” She paced the circumference of the platform.

Cam followed her and said, “It’s not possible that they’ve accomplished what you think. No living hologram is down there. There is no such thing as a human being made of light.”

“Considering everything I’ve seen in the past few months, I’m not discounting anything,” she said. Having completed a full circle on the platform, she stopped and looked at the open panel on the column from which they had emerged. “This isn’t working.”

“What do you mean? What isn’t working?” Cam asked.

“Being up here. It was a mistake to come up here. They think they have us trapped on the third floor. You heard the guy saying they had the stairwells guarded. It will probably take them a couple hours at least to search the entire floor. What if we went to the second floor?”

“We can use the conduits to get to the second floor, if you like,” Cam said.

Mara shook her head and walked over to the column. She slammed the panel door closed and turned to Cam. “No time for crawling around like a pair of hamsters. Hang on. We’re taking the shortcut.”

Cam disappeared in a burst of light. A second later so did Mara.

When the brilliance subsided, Mara watched Cam stagger a bit, reaching out his hand to steady himself against one of the huge plasma-filled cubes. They were now on the second floor.

Looking at her wide-eyed, Cam said, “I wish you had given me a warning before doing that.” He looked around, getting his bearings. “Where exactly are we?”

“Sorry. I just wanted to get down here and take a look at what’s going on downstairs,” she said. “We’re behind that first cube on the second floor, the one closest to the stairwell.”

“If you want to see what’s happening on the first floor, go where the floor opens up to the atrium. Staying near the column is still the safest bet for hiding. Although being that much closer to the first floor makes it a little riskier.”

“If you want to stay here, I understand,” Mara said. “It might even be the best thing to do, since each of us alone is less likely to draw attention.”

“I think I would feel better if we stuck together, if you don’t mind.”

Mara nodded and walked to the corner of the cube, stopping to peek around the edge. She couldn’t see anyone between the cube and the door to the stairs or beyond in the open space leading to the atrium. She could hear the continued clapping and cheering from the crowd in the distance, although it sounded as if it were waning. Slipping around the corner, she waved for Cam to follow and jogged alongside the cube. She paused for a second at the next corner, looked to see if anyone was approaching and then dashed across the open space toward the stairwell door. She leaned against the wall and waited for Cam to catch up.

“Skulking around appears pointless,” she said. “I don’t think anyone is on this floor. They are all downstairs or looking for us on the third floor.”

“There’s not much reason for someone to come here. There are no offices or useful rooms. Just transceiver infrastructure. I suspect we’ll be all right, if we don’t draw attention to ourselves.”

“Okay then, let’s calmly walk over and take a look at what’s going on downstairs.”

Cam nodded and followed when she pushed off from the wall. After a few steps, he raised his hand to his temple and let out an almost silent gasp. He’d stopped walking. Mara continued for a few more steps before she realized he’d fallen behind.

Turning, she noticed the slight astonishment on Cam’s face. “What’s going on?”

“The Sig-net is back up. I’m getting a signal again,” he said. Astonishment turned to a frown. “It seems different now.”

“Different? How?”

“I’m not sure. For one thing, there are no news streams. Perhaps they haven’t been able to bring them up yet.” A blank look crossed his face, as if he were staring at the horizon. “It’s a one-way connection. That’s odd.”

“One way? What do you mean?”

“I am receiving signals from the Sig-net, but I can’t send any back—or, more precisely, the signals I’m sending are bouncing. They are not being transmitted to the network. They are blocked.”

“Maybe they are fixing the sending and receiving portions of the system sequentially. Would it be unusual for functionality to be recovered piecemeal in a circumstance like this?” Mara asked.

“There has never been a circumstance like this. Anything is possible.”

“Then it’s not out of the realm of possibility.” She waved for him to follow and continued toward the railing just several yards away. “Keep monitoring for anything weird, but, in the meantime, let’s see what’s going on over here.”

She approached the column, making a point of keeping it between her and the line of site of anyone who might be looking in her direction from below, especially anyone standing in front of the audience on the risers. Pressing her back to the translucent wall, she slid around the corner and leaned out slightly to look below.